Economist.com Cities Guide: Johannesburg Briefing - July 2006

News this month

Thirty years on

June 16th was a day of defiant celebration and sombre contemplation in Soweto, Johannesburg's most famous township, to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1976 Soweto uprising. The action broke out in the sprawling township when black students demonstrated against the education policies of South Africa's apartheid regime, which included classes taught in Afrikaans, a language that many young blacks did not speak. Officially, police killed almost 100 students when they opened fire on the crowd—other estimates are far higher—and several days of bloody strife followed. The event heralded a new wave of resistance and the rise of a generation of activists, planting the seeds for the end of white minority rule in 1994.

Commemorations in Soweto included a walk from Morris Isaacson School in Mputhi Street, where the first march started in 1976, to the Hector Pieterson Memorial, named after the first and youngest student to be shot by police (he was 13 years old). Wreaths were laid and Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's president, delivered a speech to a crowd of 20,000 people.

Horn of plenty

Hats flew in the air and horns were blown at the Sandton headquarters of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), Africa's largest bourse, on June 5th, when it followed other leading international exchanges by becoming a listed company on its own market. The shift culminated a decade of change at the 119-year-old JSE, during which the exchange transformed from a cosy stockbrokers' club making 5,000 trades a day to a transparent limited company making 30,000.

Today, the JSE is the world's 17th-largest exchange. Over the last decade, liquidity, measured by the ratio of trading volume to market capitalisation, has risen from 7% to about 40%. In 2005, the JSE's main share-price index rose by 43%, up from 22% in 2004. Yet although overall performance has been good this year, the JSE was not immune to jitters that have hit financial markets recently, and its main index lost some ground in June.

Healthier signs

South Africa’s HIV/AIDS activists had some rare good news in June, when the government of Gauteng, the province that includes Johannesburg, announced that its budget for dealing with the disease would increase by 48% to 515.4m rand ($70m) for the coming financial year. The newly appointed provincial health minister, Brian Hlongwa, said the province treated 41,000 AIDS patients last year, including 6,000 children. The disease is thought to be responsible for one in three deaths in the province.

Mr Hlongwa said the province aims to extend care to 65,000 people by the end of this financial year. The health department's priority is to revitalise hospitals, including Johannesburg's Chris Hani Baragwanath, and to build new ones in neglected areas. The province also plans to recruit 2,300 health professionals (on top of the 2,900 new hires last year), procure better equipment and pay bonuses to top employees. Poor working conditions and low salaries have led to a severe shortage of health staff in Gauteng, hampering treatment of HIV/AIDS.

No smooth journey

The Gautrain, the 20-billion-rand high-speed rail project that will link Johannesburg, its airport and Pretoria, South Africa's capital, hit more snags in June. Objections to the project’s revised environmental-impact study further delayed the closure of the deal between the Bombela consortium, which has the contract to build the Gautrain, and South Africa’s authorities. It now looks unlikely that the Gautrain will be completed in time for the 2010 football World Cup, which South Africa will host.

The delay is only the latest disappointment for Gauteng's provincial government, which has allocated 4.6 billion rand from its 6.2 billion rand transport budget for the project, despite criticism that the money could be better spent elsewhere. A third of the proposed route—preferred over earlier versions on grounds of safety and costs—is under dispute from residents, who are unhappy with the impact the Gautrain will have in their area. The project's sponsors are now considering reverting to a previous route to reduce the areas of conflict.

Growing pains

In June the Johannesburg municipal authority, which has been struggling to keep up with the city's rapid population growth, announced the creation of a new department to oversee the expansion of municipal services. The department will concentrate on collecting garbage and providing electricity and water. Johannesburg’s budget is 21 billion rand this year—the largest ever—of which 3.2 billion rand has been allocated to capital expenditure. The city plans to invest about 6 billion rand in electricity and water infrastructure over the next five years.

Johannesburg's infrastructure certainly struggles to meet demand: the city suffers from frequent power failures, and informal settlements have trouble getting water and sanitation. Part of the problem has been a shortage of senior professional and technical staff—vacancies for these positions reportedly stand at 27%. Poor financial management has also been an issue. There are no signs of a slowdown in growth—households numbered 1m in the 2001 census, and are expected to reach 2m by 2012. Household waste increased by over 13% last year, and three of the city's five landfill sites are expected to be full within seven years.

Catch if you can

July 2006

Kinshasa, the Imaginary City

Until August 27th 2006

This prize-winning, multi-media exhibition studies the troubled and vibrant capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. A collaboration between three Belgians—Filip de Boeck, an anthropologist, Marie-Françoise Plissart, a photographer and filmmaker, and Koen van Synghel, an architect—the exhibit explores Kinshasa's architecture, examining the rise and fall of its buildings and infrastructure. It covers the era of Belgian colonisation, but concentrates on modern Kinshasa, mainly with colour photographs and videos.

The show interprets the city as an idea that exists in the minds of its inhabitants. It was first exhibited in the Belgium Pavilion at the International Architecture Exhibition in Venice in 2004.
Johannesburg Art Gallery, King George St (between Wolmarans & Noord Sts), Johannesburg. Tel: +27 (0)11 725-3130. Open: Tues-Sun 10am-5pm.

More from the Johannesburg cultural calendar